RIYADH, 25 June 2004 — As the US presidential elections draw near, the political pundits across the world watch for signals emanating from foreign policy speeches. This election year has been particularly different for a variety of reasons. Never before has American foreign policy been under such close scrutiny and the contestants’ speeches awaited with such bated breath.
While world leaders across the spectrum continue to criticize President Bush for his unilateralist gung-ho approach, other events are unfolding within America itself. Excluding the previous broadside during the Vietnam
War, it is perhaps the first time in recent history that former US diplomats and senior military personnel, twice in successive months in an election year, saw fit to issue statements condemning an incumbent administration’s overseas policy. Notably, on both occasions, the criticism was directed toward the Middle East policy.
These events bode well for the challenger, the Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Unfortunately, the tidbits originating from the senator’s election camp are not particularly encouraging for these former diplomats. While recently unfurling his vision for American foreign policy, the senator waxed eloquent on a policy that could have well been formulated in the incumbent’s camp. While expressing a determination to strike up new strategic alliances (and thereby shedding the old) he singled out Saudi Arabia for its purported funding of terrorist activities. He has gone on further to promise an American retreat from its dependence on Middle Eastern oil with a view to becoming “independent”. As if to further ratchet up the anti-Arab rhetoric, he has persistently portrayed a strong bias in favor of Israel.
One breather in this tumult of regional policy deluge seems to be Kerry’s opposition to the present American involvement in Iraq. Simplistically, it would serve the interests of the challenger to offer to disentangle the country’s armed forces from its self-created predicament. Although, one does recall his “yes” vote on the decision to invade Iraq, none of this seems to matter to him in the existing context. Moreover, his tirade against Bush on this issue has visibly failed to spell out any answers to the present quagmire, which the serving military establishment seems satisfied to preserve. In fact, the potential election of Kerry to the presidential post should give the country the perfect face-saving opportunity to disengage itself completely from this imbroglio.
While the Arab world watched with increasing incredulity, President Bush aligned himself almost completely with a rabidly militant Israeli government which even former American diplomats to the region have considered necessary to publicly decry. And yet, this message seems to have evaded Sen. Kerry as he has opted for an even more stridently pro-Israeli stand. Although American presidents in the preceding decades had shown an ever-increasing bias in favor of the Israelis, the present contenders have taken it upon themselves to shed any display of neutrality. By constantly lowering the threshold for calls on Palestinian compromise, there is now an almost complete capitulation to the Israeli demands. This gradual dilution of neutrality has not been lost on the Arab populace. However, sensing an Arab impotence in dealing with such overt favoritism, the present presidential contenders have openly courted this abrasive pro-Israeli policy. While we remain fixated with our internal woes, issues of Arab nationalism have lost all focus and we are thus left to deal with the very real prospect of a complete diplomatic rout on this issue, internal voices of dissent within the US notwithstanding.
The criticism emanating from the elite forum of diplomats with decades of experience in regional politics has likewise not dented Sen. Kerry’s appetite for anti-Saudi vitriol. The robust attack on the Kingdom in his first foreign policy white paper seems more like a leaf taken out of the current US administration’s book — albeit without the trappings of the neocon self-righteousness. On this issue, both presidential candidates seem like the two sides of the same coin.
It would serve Kerry’s interests better to adopt a policy of engagement with Saudi Arabia. If he harbors any political or diplomatic maturity within him, then he should be seeking to bridge the gap that has been created by the Bush administration rather than embark on a futile populist policy of incoherent blame.
Trying to find scapegoats in other countries would only take America further away from the political introspection that this great country recently seems to have developed a dislike of. Suffice it to say that the notion of Saudi Arabia funding Al-Qaeda would be akin to self-immolation.
Realistically, the Bin Ladens of this world have spelt a more imminent danger to the Saudi government than they ever did to the US. The constant berating of Saudi Arabia for the Sept. 11 “funding” seems merely to have become a popular stick with which to beat our country.
The recent report by the commission probing the Sept. 11 attacks has come out freeing the official machinery of the Saudi government from any direct involvement in the funding of this operation. While it has been hailed as a vindication of sorts, much remains to be done to capitalize on this rare bit of good news. The battle of facts has been won. However, winning the war would require us to change popular perception which, as it stands today in the Western world, is not entirely rosy.
Those who expect to see the end of George Bush’s bigoted Middle Eastern preamble after the November presidential elections are unrealistic in their desire for a more even-handed approach. The relentless blackmail for change and subjugation is bound to persist as part of the official American strategy, regardless of any change at the country’s helm. To counter this, we in the Arab world, will have to break free from our political hibernation.
These former diplomats have offered us an opportunity. It would truly be a shame if we let this historic opportunity slip away.
Four things do not come back: The spoken word, the spent arrow, the past, and the neglected opportunity. (Omar Ibn Al-Halif)
— Dr. Faisal Sanai is a Saudi physician working at the Armed Forces Hospital in Riyadh.
